Elfrida sighed. That won't work for long, she thought. I hope Daddy won't find the report on the Bank Scandal in Hamsterton.

What had happened? Let us go back a few weeks und let us go to Hamsterton. Where is Hamsterton? Nobody really knows. Daisy is of the opinion that there was a secret tunnel in the Magic Forest and the hamsters had come that way.

However, there was much ado in Hamsterton because a bank had been opened there. All hamsters were certain that soon they would be very rich. At a bank, after all, you get money, don't you? The owner of the bank was Carlo Killjoy, a very, very rich man. As mentioned before, the hamsters at first were most delighted when they got money from the bank and only had to sign some small piece of paper. As most of the hamsters were not able to read they were not interested in what was written on the paper. Now they could buy munchies in abundance and all felt fine. More and more hamsters ran to the Hamsterton-Bank and Mr. Killjoy needed assistance. So he employed some hamsters as clerks. A few weeks later nobody had any idea how much money was there and the chaos was complete.

Carlo Killjoy raged. Together with Dr. Shyster, his counselor and lawyer, he was sitting in his office and discussed what to do now.

"How came it about that you went bust?" Dr. Shyster wanted to know from Mr. Killjoy.

"Stupidity", Carlo Killjoy grumbled, "damned stupidity. I looked for people to work in my bank and a lot of hamsters showed up. Of course I checked whether they knew anything about finance business."

"Well?" Dr. Shyster asked. "Did they?"

Carlo Killjoy sucked at his fat cigar, blew the smoke and continued:

"Sure, the hamsters told me about exchange courses, shares and the like. Naturally I thought they knew what they were talking about. Some of them talked about some special hairdryer but I had no idea what they meant. However, the hamsters knew so many expressions that I thought them to be experts.”

"Special hairdryer?" Dr. Shyster asked.

"Yep, special hairdryer, Euro exchange and all that. They knew the words but they had no idea of the meaning."

"So you employed idiots!" Dr. Shyster looked at Mr. Killjoy steadily. "I'll take over the matter. After all, I'm your counselor and lawyer. First of all we will punish those hamsters who feigned knowledge of banking matters."

"You cannot really do that", Mr. Killjoy moaned.

"O yes, I can", Dr. Shyster said. "I even have to as your counselor and lawyer because you have a contract with me and I have to take care of your interests – remember?"

Carlo Killjoy moved restlessly in his big armchair when Dr. Shyster continued: "And now get me the boss of the hamsters. I've got to put some questions to him."

Mr. Killjoy pressed a button and spoke into a micro: "Topple, please come into my office."

A few minutes later a hamster with a pen behind his ear entered and looked at the two men attentively.

"Well, well, Mr. – eh – Topple", Dr. Shyster said and looked down to the little hamster. "Will you tell me which amount of circulating assets is at our disposal?"

Carlo Killjoy rolled his eyes when he translated: "Circulating assets, very good, homepage, special hairdryer."

"Out!" Dr. Shyster croaked and tried to kick the hamster but caught his foot in the carpet and crashed down. Topple squeaked and fled while Dr. Shyster looked at his expensive suit and discovered a long tear in the sleeve. Infuriated he stalked over to Mr. Killjoy. "Where are the notes with the hamsters' signatures?" he shouted and Carlo Killjoy pointed at the safe.

"In there", he said. "It's open, there's no money left."

The lawyer trod over to the safe, took some of the notes, read them and said: "Very good, each hamster committed himself to pay back the money. They all have signed that they belong to us if they cannot pay. I myself set up this contract. The hamsters have no chance, they belong to us and we can do with them whatever we like. First of all we'll claim those hamsters who wasted all the money and ruined our business."

"But it's not the animals' fault that they have not idea about banking", Mr. Killjoy stammered.

"Doesn't matter", Dr. Shyster growled. "I want my revenge. The cat-police shall arrest all hamsters who work in this bank.”

Topple, who had hidden behind the door, suppressed a shocked squeak and ran straightaway to warn his friends.

After Topple found all those of his friends who had been working at the bank, he told them about Dr. Shyster. He told them that this lawyer and counselor of Mr. Killjoy had the saying now and wanted to get the hamsters down.

“We have to flee”, Fluffy said. “My cousin Flecki once told me something about a Magic Forest. But I don’t know the way.”

“And where is Flecki now?” Topple asked.

“In Australia, I think“, Fluffy replied, “or maybe in Syria.”

“That helps us a lot”, Topple groaned.

“But I know something”, a redhaired hamster named Dumple said. “My friend Goldi once told me that we have to search at the old oak tree behind Hamstermound. A cave entrance is said to be there.“

„So what are we waiting for?“ Fluffy asked. “Dumple and I will walk ahead. I carry a lot of paper scraps with me. We will leave a trail with them and you will follow us.”

Fluffy and Dumple set out.

“Paper scraps? What does Fluffy need that for?” Paunchy asked, a portly hamster who for ever was chewing carrots.

“No idea”, Topple said, “she’s just forever shredding.”

When Fluffy and Dumple reached the old oak tree, they looked for the hidden cave entrance. They looked and looked and when they almost wanted to give up, they found it. Now they only had to wait for their friends and the journey could start.

When the sun was setting Fluffy said: “I’m bored, let’s go home again.”

Jenny did not listen to the two pigs because she had discovered something. Interestedly she watched some birds which obviously were very excited. Were they quarrelling? Jenny nudged Elfrida and Daisy and pointed at the birds. Bernie, who also took notice, shrugged: “Quarreling over chows, silly birds!”

Jenny shook her head. “No, Bernie, look closer. The birds are sitting on branches and look to the ground. There has to be something they don’t know.”

The friends nodded to each other and walked into the direction of the chirping birds.

The two quarrelling pigs stayed behind. When they only had a few steps to go Norbert stumbled over a root and fell. Wailing loudly, he lay on the cold ground.

While he helped Norbert up and consoled him, the girls had reached the spot. They knelt down and at first did not know what to say.

“Cigam Tserof?”

The children took a frightened step back. Speaking hamsters!

“Ollah! Laiceps reyrdriah!”

„That has to be Hamstish“, Elfrida gasped. “I heard that somewhere already. Jenny, do you understand them?”

Jenny stepped forward. „Let’s see, how did it work? There’s some trick, but I can’t remember it.”

By now the two pigs had stopped quarrelling and curiously came closer.

“Aha”, Rosie grunted. “Hamster!”

“Aha! Aha! CigamTtserof?”

„Tserofcim?“ Rosie goggled at the hamster who had said so. Then she pointed at herself: “Rosie!”

“Eisor!”

“Not raizor – Rosie? I am R o s i e !“

“Eisor!”

Rosie got furious by now. “You want to have trouble?!”

“Laiceps reyrdriah!”

Jenny shoved the pig aside.

“Let me try, I think I got the idea”, she said and bent down to the hamster. “Ollah retsmah!” she began, turned to her friends and said in a low voice: “That is ‘Hallo hamster!’ in Hamstish.

Suddenly the little animals began to cheer. The children sighed in relief. They had succeeded, they could talk with their new friends.

As at this time of the year it was rather cold in the Magic Forest, the children decided to go to the house of Elfrida’s parents first.

Fortunately her parents just were at aunt Odilia’s to have coffee and cake. Bruno was on a class outing and so they could do as they pleased for the next hours. The hamsters were taken to Bruno’s vacant room.

“Bruno will only be back next week”, Elfrida explained. “My parents won’t go in there in the meantime. My daddy certainly won’t for last time he slipped on one of Bruno’s cars and skidded right into the wardrobe. O my, how he swore!”

When the lodgings for the hamsters were secured, the children had to learn. To understand the hamsters they had to learn Hamstish. Jenny gave the lessons:

“Well, Hamstish is our language backwards. So word is ‘drow’ and sentence is ‘ecnetnes’. You may turn or not turn ‘ck’. In Hamsteriran it is not turned, in Hamsterhoosen it is. Rosie, what is ‘jacket’ in Hamsterhoosenish?”

Bertha cleared her throat. “It’s ‘tekcaj’ of course, as ‘ck’ is turned in Hamsterhoosen. Everybody knows that, or almost everybody!“

And so they continued their lessons until their heads were spinning. Finally they had made it and after two days they could talk with the hamsters fluently.

Topple now told their whole story and the children silently listened how the hamsters had to leave their homes and never could go back.

“But the worst thing”, Fluffy cried, “is that our friends certainly have to suffer terribly. I’m sure that wicked lawyer forces them to toil in the pits of Hamsterjelly and search for gold.”

“That’s it”, Dumple said. “He wants his money back and now our friends have to work night and day until they collapse.”

“We have no means to help them, it’s pointless. We don’t have a chance against that lawyer.”

“Yes, Grumpy, you have”, Elfrida said and looked at him. “We can and will help you but first of all we have to get to Hamsterton.”

Topple was so happy that he hopped into Elfrida’s arms when suddenly Bobble came in. He walked carefully not to tread on a car. The hamsters flitted under Bruno’s bed, all of them except Topple. Topple was in Elfrida’s arms and goggled at her. Elfrida goggled at Bobble and Bobble goggled at Elfrida. It was silent for about a minute, then Elfrida said: “Cute, isn’t it, Daddy? That’s the latest hit, a talking hamster with battery.”

“Aha!” Bobble said. „A talking hamster! So what’s your name?“

„Aha! Aha!“ Topple replied.

Surprised, Bobble took a backward step.

“That’s quite something”, Bobble grumbled and turned to Elfrida. “I just wanted to tell you that we are staying overnight with aunt Odilia and I’ll leave the car here. We will be home late tomorrow, so behave!”

Without looking at his feet, Bobble walked out and Elfried cried: “Take care, Daddy, Bruno’s cars are in…”

When in this style Bobble had taken his farewell and noisily shut the front door, Elfrida came back to her first idea: “So we have to get to Hamsterton.”

Everybody nodded, only Topple shook his little head.

“You can’t get there, the cave entrance is much too small for you.”

What were they to do now? Pensively all the friends sat on the floor and turned this over in there minds, but they had no idea.

Finally Rosie cleared her throat. “How did that Whatshisname and the other Whatshisname come to you?”

Bertha blinked and shook her head. “Will you please express yourself? Which Whatshisname and the other Whatshisname?”

“She’s talking about Carlo Killjoy and Dr. Shyster”, Daisy explained.

“Yes, indeed”, Elfrida said. “How did they come to you?”

“Well, by car”, Grumpy explained. “They broke the barrier. It’s this way: If you want to leave Hamsterton, you’ve got to do it with high speed. With a rocket or a fast car for instance. You dash towards the high mountains near Hamstermound. If your speed is big enough, you simply fly through the mountain at that spot.”

“Exactly”, Fluffy added. “Killjoy and his lawyer arrived with a big, fast car!”

Elfrida thought and walked up and down in the room. She looked to the ceiling, then at her friends, then at the hamsters and finally out of the window. “We might take my daddy’s car.”

“That slowcoach?” Bernie shook his head.

“I could rig it”, Rosie grunted. “Perhaps it’s faster then.”

Nobody answered and Bertha wrinkled her nose.

“I would rather fasten myself to a rocket than have a car rigged by you.”

“That’s it!” Bernie cried. „We’ll speed up Bobble’s jalopy by New Year rockets!”

In no time Elfrida had fetched a box from the kitchen. The thirty hamsters scrambled in and Bernie took the box to the car. Rosie took the wheel and when they all had fastened their seat belts she started.

“Eh, where shall I go to?” Rosie asked and blushed.

“To Professor Hasty, of course. He know everything about rockets.“

Rosie nodded and accelerated. Cautiously she took the car out of the parking bay and slowly approached a red traffic light. When they had passed the big crossing another red traffic light made Rosie stop meekly.

Her friends were surprised and Bertha shouted: “Well, if you go on like that, we’ll all arrive safely!”

Rosie did not answer but slowly drove on towards the town boundary. When they were out of town, Rosie whistled softly and said: “Thank God. I thought that police car would follow us right to the lighthouse. On we go!”

The tires squealed, Bertha shrieked and the hamsters squeaked when the car suddenly sped up and raced down the road. Rosie was merrily singing ‘Country Roads’ and took the bend with high speed. A few minutes later the others were glad to see Prof. Hasty’s lighthouse. In a moment Rosie would have to slow down and to turn to the left. So they all thought – Rosie didn’t.

“Today is open dune day!” Rosie shouted and steered the car sharply to the left into the dunes. With full speed she raced over the dunes. Again and again her friends shrieked in panic when the car was right in the air. Finally there was a big bump and the car was stuck in a high sand dune. The front and back wheels were hanging in the air and the journey was over. With trembling legs they all got out, only a few steps from the lighthouse. It took them a few minutes to go there, for they had to collect the hamsters who were all over the car.

When they entered the lighthouse they found a new door. “An elevator”, Bernie stated and pressed a button.

The children could see that the lights on the panel were blinking wildly. Some swooshing and whistling was to be heard, then there was a loud crash. The door opened slowly and Prof. Hasty was lying on the elevator floor. All about him lay smoking debris.

“Not really ready, the good piece, Professor!” Elfrida grinned and helped him up.

“The r-rub is in the h-hydraulics”, the professor stammered and brushed his work coat. “We’d better w-walk.”

365 stairs later they all were quite exhausted and when they had rested, Jenny told the professor what had happened. When she told him about their rocket car idea, the professor sat down at his desk, made a drawing and some calculations.

“That m-might work. How thick is the rock formation?” he asked and looked at Topple.

“52 sretem!” Toppel replied.

“Sretem?” the professor asked.

“Meters!” Daisy explained.

Prof. Hasty made his calculations. A big pile of paper was in front of him and one page after the other he filled with numbers and formulas. One hour later he went into his lab, came back with four metal tubes and put them onto the table.

Curiously the children looked at the tubes. They were about half a metre long and had a diameter big enough to put a tennis ball in. A few minutes later Professor Hasty came with a bucket and placed it beside the tubes.

“Magnesium carbonate and a secret p-powder, that will drive the rockets. N-now let’s carry all that d-down and mount it”, the professor proposed. He took the bucket with the rocket drive, Bernie and Jenny stuck the tubes under their arms and they all walked down the stairs to the beach. Having arrived there, the professor looked at the car in surprise. It still was hanging on the dune, wheels in the air.

“Y-you have a curious way of parking, you know”, he said and took a closer look at the car. Then he took the first tube and held it to the left front wing. He handed a pair of gloves, which he had taken along, to Bernie and asked him to hold the tube. With a small welder he began to weld the tube to the wing. When the tube was fixed, he did the same at the right front wing. Half an hour later the two last tubes were welded to the back wings und with much surprise the children saw that Bobble’s jalopy had change into a rocket car.

“Oops!” Rosie said. „I can hardly wait to drive that. But how do we get it from the dune?”

“As m-matter of f-fact, you will not drive the car”, the professor said. “I will do that.”

“Than I won’t go with you, I’ll never again will go with you!” Rosie wailed.

“All r-right, you get it down from the dune, b-but I will drive it to Hamsterton, got me?”

Rosie nodded and got into the car. The professor took some powder from the bucket and filled about a handful in each of the tubes. Now he fastened a wire to each tube and all the wires were connected to a switch.

He handed the switch to Rosie and said: “If y-you are ready, press the switch.”

Then the professor asked the children to step aside and nodded to Rosie. Rosie pressed the switch, the powder caught fire and the car began to vibrate with a hissing sound. Suddenly it swished like a rocket down to the beach and plunged into the water.

“W-well, w-well, that was a little too much powder”, the professor said when they ran down to rescue Rosie.

A few minutes later they had got a very wet and very angry Rosie out of the water and the car as well. Rosie was rubbed dry and finally they could start to the Magic Forest.

The animals in the Magic Forest were not to forget this day so easily. It wasn’t every day that a rocket car full of mafficking children and squeaking hamsters crossed the wood. When they approached the clearing with the witch house, the professor fired the rockets for a moment and with breakneck speed they passed the witch house. The witch who just was preparing her slime soup was totally taken by surprise when her pot sprang from the hearth.

“I think her roof’s blown off”, Bernie grinned and on they raced until they came to the spot where the hamsters had reached the Magic Forest through the secret passage. Directly in front of them was a high rocky mountain. The professor got out of the car and refilled the rockets. Again and again he checked on the amount of powder.

The children waited impatiently and Bertha whispered: “Why don’t we go?”

Bernie grinned. “If the professor takes too much powder, we’ll go right on to Hamsterjelly. Not to talk about the fact that the car will be scrap and we’ll probably not survive it. However, if he takes too little we might be stuck in the rocks.”

When they all had done what he told them, the professor turned and said: “Ready for take-off?” Then he pressed the switch and just heard Elfrida shouting:

“Stop! I think we made a mistake!”

The rest of her words were drowned in the howling of the rockets.

At first the car was very slow, but then it shot forward and disappeared in the rocks. Hissing, the car moved on and the passengers held their breath. For a moment it was pitch dark all around them, then suddenly it got light again when they left the rocks and were flying over Hamstermound. They passed trees and shrubs with racing speed. The hamsters had stopped squeaking since long and anxiously huddled together.

On and on the wild flight went until a mound showed up in the distance. The rocket car shot towards it. The mound seemed to get bigger and bigger until the car crashed into it. For a few minutes they all were silent, Then Bertha said with a sharp voice:

“It stinks dreadfully here. Where are we?”

The hamsters scrambled from under the seats. They stood on their hind-paws and Flecki said: “That’s the waste deposit of Hamsterjelly. We landed in the waste!”

They got the car out of the waste deposit cautiously and drove on. The roads of Hamsterton were much too narrow for the car, so they proceeded very slowly. But finally they arrived. Hamstercity, the bank quarter, presenterd a shocking sight. Everywhere hamsters were dragging much too heavy carts. Many of them lugged sacks and in all it was a woebegone picture. Scrubby and haggard, that’s what the hamsters looked like.

“And obviously they get nothing to eat”, Grumpy stated. “Many of them surely collapsed already.”

Topple stopped a hamster who was dragging a heavy cart and talked with him. Then he turned to the others and said in a shocked voice: “He hasn’t eaten for days because the sand which he carts to the bank does not contain enough gold dust.”

“That’s the limit”, Elfrida loudly said in Hamstish so that everybody could hear it. “Enough with all that grafting, we’ll collar these buggers!”

Infuriated, Elfrida stormed into the bank. Her friends followed her closely.

They had just rushed into the entrance hall when they stopped, appalled. Over there Carlo Killjoy was busy checking the sandbags of the hamsters for gold dust. Behind him was a staircase built of marble. At the end of the staircase the lawyer Dr. Shyster was sitting in a large armchair like a throne. But what appalled the friends was sitting at the foot of the stairs. Two big cats looked at them with glittering eyes. They bared their dangerous claws and hissed loudly.

“Visitors”, Dr. Shysters said with a sly smile. “I think you have not appointment.”

“You damned son of a bitch”, Bertha shouted, “what have you done to the hamsters?”

“Done to them? They signed a contract. If they don’t pay me back, they’ll work until they collapse.”

The lawyer gave a loud, mean laughter. Then he snapped his fingers and the big cats slowly sneaked up to the children. The lawyer rose and followed. “Get out of my bank or you’ll get to know my kitties.”

They all retreated until they had reached their car. When they were outside the bank, Dr. Shyster gave the car a scornful look and grinned:

“Regarding good ideas I’m quite a genius. You now all get into the boot. In the bucket on the back seat will be the powder for your funny rocket drive. When you’re in the boot, I’ll load the powder and send you to the moon.”

From his jacket pocket he fetched a bundle of papers. “Here are the contracts. The silly hamsters signed them all and will pay for it. Now, get into the boot!”

Reluctantly they obeyed. Prof. Hasty went first, then the two pigs… Just a minute! Where was Rosie? Bertha wanted to say something, but Elfrida nudged her. Elfrida scrambled in last and wanted to jump out of the boot again quickly, but Dr. Shyster paid attention.

“No tricks, lady, get yourself in there!”

With a sigh Elfrida scrambled into the boot. This lawyer was too smart for her. Rosie was her last hope. While the lawyer and his two dangerous cats were standing at the boot, Rosie felt like a nervous wreck. As matter of fact when the others had stormed the bank, the hungry pig had searched the car for something to eat. She had just been opening a box of biscuits when her friends came out of the bank again – backwards. When she saw the dangerous cats, she preferred to stay in the car and now listened with pounding heart. What now? Her brain worked frantically. She tried to slide from the passenger seat to the floor but left her hold. To hold on something she gripped – the switch for the rockets and then it happened:

There was a tremendous bang, followed by the hissing of a starting rocket. The car jumped forward, then all was silent.

Anxiously Rosie turned and looked through the rear window. Dr. Shyster was still standing there with the cats. They were quite blackened. Fur, claws and teeth of the erstwhile dangerous cats were singed by the heat. Dr. Shyster stood there naked and had the rests of a burnt bundle of papers in his hands.

Carlo Killjoy was standing in front of the bank and almost toppled over with laughter.

When all the poor hamsters saw that the cats no longer could harm them, they attacked. With their small, piked teeth they fell on the cats and bit their naked bums. They did the same to the lawyer.

Elfrida climbed out of the boot and said: “I think your contracts just ended in smoke!”

They all laughed loudly when the mean lawyer and his mean cats ran as fast as they could. They jumped into their car and rushed off.

“I guess we won’t see them again”, Bernie grinned.

Well, dear reader, this finishes our story. And what became of Carlo Killjoy? He was really sorry about the whole matter. Okay, he had wanted to cheat the hamsters a little. But that his counsellor and lawyer was such a nasty piece had opened his eyes. Carlo Killjoy lost a lot of money, but he nevertheless was not a poor man. After the hamsters had forgiven him, he opened a restaurant in Hamstercity. All those hamsters who had worked for him at the bank before, now also found work at his new restaurant. So they all were satisfied.

All of them? Well, almost. Bobble found not explanation why his vehicle had changed into a rocket car. It took Elfrida quite some time to convince him that this new sort of car war really swell. As matter of fact he tested it. One evening he clandestinely put some firecrackers into the tube and lit them. Unfortunately, this went quite awry because the firecrackers on the left side did not ignite so that the car rotated like a propeller, took off and landed in the middle of the crossing where Constable Betrams controlled the traffic. It was not easy for Bobble to share a room in the hospital with the constable for the next few weeks. The constable’s scolding rang in his ears for days.

Elfrida, Jenny, Daisy, Susie, Rosie, Bertha, Bernie, and Norbert began to widen the tunnel in the Magic Forest so that they could visit Hamsterton and their hamster friends. Also in Hamsterhoosen, Hamsterjelly, Hamstermound, and Hamsteriran many volunteers announced their readiness to join in.